


Somewhere in the Middle

by neverfinishe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Clint/Everyone Listed, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hint of Clint, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Multi, OT4, Other, Past Riley/Sam Wilson, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1809880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfinishe/pseuds/neverfinishe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts because Bucky can’t be around Steve for any substantial length of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere in the Middle

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. There’s a bit of unreliable narration going on depending on the scene. 2. Stress baking is amazing. 3. Froyo/Fro-yo is frozen yogurt for anyone that might not know. 4. There are two endings. The second one is crack, so just stop before the ‘-*-’ if you want to end it at something slightly more serious. 5. Sam’s got a new place in NY near the Tower, because continuity. 6. This is the second longest thing I’ve written in years. It’s just flashes, and I tried really hard to show a little bit of everything. It’s un-beta’d, so proceed at your own risk. It’s also the first time I’ve written a long, in depth poly, so I hope I did it some justice. 7. This is not at all comic canon compliant.
> 
> & 8\. You could partly consider this a fill for this ( http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19023.html?thread=45290831#t45290831 ) prompt (the very very basic idea of a OT4 thing formed because of it, though the person didn’t ask for an OT4, and the concept of the prompt is very much a background concept).

It all starts because Bucky can’t be around Steve for any substantial length of time. Steve tries not to take it personally.

Bucky just can’t stand the way Steve looks at him with big, hopeful eyes, waiting for _that_ Bucky to come back, and Bucky is certain that isn’t going to happen. He can’t stand to see the little moments of sadness when he fails to do something that Steve expects him to do. He’s not the person Steve knew, and he can’t try to be ‘normal’ when he’s constantly reminded that he isn’t.

So he stays with Sam. It’s the most logical option, apparently. He’s not entirely included in that decision, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. He’s still struggling with his memories, trying to recover the ones he hasn’t and reconcile with the ones he has. But he knows that isn’t why he’s really staying with Sam. He’s still a threat, and he needs to be watched. He needs something balanced, and Sam gives him that. He creates a routine for them, and he sticks to it without getting upset or disappointed when Bucky has a flashback or anxiety makes it too difficult for him to follow through with their night time jog. He’s patient and without expectations. It’s exactly what Bucky needs.

-

A month into the whole mess, and he still hasn’t slept through an entire night. He doesn’t exactly wake up screaming every night, but he doesn’t sleep either. He haunts the kitchen, looking through everything for something to do, but he has no idea how to cook or bake. He thinks about asking, but he never does.

A cookbook somehow makes its way onto the counter one day. (‘Huh, I guess I forgot to put that away,’ Sam says when he catches Bucky staring at it.) It stays, but it gains new stains and wrinkled pages from water damage or accidentally grabbing at it too roughly.

Sam thinks he might have to start running more if he’s going to keep buying Bucky baking supplies.

-

Baking doesn’t solve the nightmares. It just gives Bucky something to do. He can focus on the time, the ingredients. He has to measure everything perfectly, though he sometimes changes things just to see what will happen. It doesn’t all come out right, but Sam doesn’t expect it too. Nor does he say anything when an entire batch of brownies winds up in the trash.

-

Sam’s counseled people through various stages of grief. He’s taught them how to cope with being a civilian again. And he’s spent countless hours in the early morning talking someone into calm, easy breaths after a PTSD flashback caused a panic attack. None of that really prepares him to deal with the magnitude of trauma Bucky has been through, but there’s over seventy years worth of abuse and torture locked in Bucky’s head that Sam is trying to help him with. He can’t, nor does he, expect it to be easy. That doesn’t mean that it hurts any less when he’s cradling Bucky close to his body and forcing himself to speak in a calm, quiet voice as he walks him through the 7-11 breathing technique.

He never expected this to be easy, but he doesn’t think he expected it to hurt like this either. He spent months searching for this man, listening to stories from Steve about the things Bucky did both before and after he became a soldier. He’s only now realizing just how much he cares for this man, and not just because he’s important to Steve.

Bucky calms after another two minutes, and Sam doesn’t bother helping him back to bed. Instead, he pushes himself up and holds his hand out for Bucky to take. He could go for some cupcakes or Scooby Doo.

-

Six weeks in and Sam wakes up with someone pressed firmly into his side. He’s confused at first. He hasn’t exactly kept his personal life up since Bucky started living with him. He still helps Steve out with various missions, spends a few hours talking with Natasha or Clint, but most of his time is spent with Bucky.

Cool metal registers before it finally clicks that the person _is_ Bucky.

He opens his eyes and looks down, finds Bucky curled up tight, head burried against his chest. He can’t possibly be comfortable, but he’s seen Bucky in weirder positions. _Snipers,_ he thinks with a small smile.

Two hours pass before Bucky stirs, and he looks the most rested he has since he moved in.

If the instances of ‘accidentally’ falling asleep on the couch increase, Sam doesn’t have a clue as to why.

-

Runs get them both out for a little while, and they can spend all the nervous energy they’ve collected in a single hour. Sometimes it’s shorter and sometimes it’s longer, but Sam always slots in a good hour of running in the early morning and at night after the sun has gone down. It helps get Bucky out of the house without the concern of too many people being out.

Bucky insists on long-sleeved sweatshirts and gloves to cover his fingers, even when the weather makes it uncomfortable. Sam never questions or pushes the subject.

Bucky also insists on wearing his hair up. At first, it takes Sam well over thirty minutes to get it right. He doesn’t center it right the first time, and it’s not tight enough the second. There’s something about the little hairs getting in Bucky’s face that annoys him endlessly. Eventually, he gets it down to a science, and it takes him all of a minute to wrap the band five times, just like Bucky likes it, before they’re out the door.

There are far more people out in the evenings than in the mornings, some evenings are worse than others. Bucky seems to run faster on those nights, but there’s one night where he can’t. He has to stop because he can’t breathe. He can’t pull in enough air, and his chest is so tight it _fucking hurts, Sam_. And he doesn’t recognize any of it for what it is, even though it’s not his first attack in public.

Sam glances around, making sure he can’t identify a physical threat, before taking Bucky’s hand and leading him to a secluded part of the park. His thumb rubs Bucky’s knuckle gently as he talks.

The next morning, Bucky claims he doesn’t feel up to a run, and Sam doesn’t push it. They skip the night run and the next morning, too. Come night time on the second day, Sam tells him he’ll be gone forty-five minutes at the most, but he’s gotta run some energy off or he just won’t sleep right. Bucky goes with him, they end up cutting the run twenty-five minutes short because Bucky sees someone with froyo and can’t help but ask about it. Sam insists that he can’t put it into words, and Bucky’s just gotta try it. He also accuses Bucky of being boring when he goes with plain old chocolate, but they’re both smiling and sticky and the world doesn’t really matter for once.

-

It’s after one particularly bad nightmare that Bucky winds up in his bed.

Sam wakes up to screaming. Absolutely terrified, gut-wrenching sounds. Bucky’s voice already sounds hoarse. Sam gets up and heads toward Bucky without so much as a thought of putting pants on.

Approaching Bucky can be dangerous on a good day. Startling him isn’t a suggestion Sam would make. Approaching Bucky while he’s like this is like sticking himself in the path of a rapid dog. There’s going to be blood.

That bit of knowledge doesn’t deter Sam. It hasn’t from the start. He’s done this enough, now, that he knows what to say, what not to say, and what not to say if he doesn’t want to be held a foot off the floor with metal fingers trying to collapse his throat. He still screws it up on occasion, but it’s difficult. There’s no script, and he’s never sure where Bucky is.

Bucky calms down after thirty minutes. He’s still breathing hard, arms folded against his chest in a distinctly submissive and vulnerable way. Sam hates it. He hates seeing him like this, but he gets Bucky to get up and move with him. He does his best to make it all sound like a suggestion, because he isn’t ordering a damn thing. He won’t make Bucky do anything he doesn’t want to.

He has no idea what posses him to do it, but he knows Bucky reacts to contact, distractions, and Sam’s presence. Sam provides him with all of that. He tells him to have a seat, get comfortable any way he wants and even offers him a blanket as he pulls on a pair of sweats.

They wind up curled up watching some stupid RomCom because there’s next to no chance of anything that’s going to set off a horrifying memory for Bucky.

It doesn’t matter anyways; Bucky’s asleep in the first ten minutes.

-

Sharing the bed becomes a regular thing to the point where Sam isn’t sure when it went from ‘his’ to ‘the’, and he wonders how long before it becomes ‘their’s’, if it hasn’t already. The only real downside is that Bucky is a blanket thief, but he sleeps more peacefully. He still gets up and makes goodies that Sam tries hard not to consume all of in the morning when his stomach is rumbling.

Sam starts making Bucky take them to the Tower to ditch them there, but never when Steve is there. Sam always checks with JARVIS.

-

The first kiss is initiated by Sam. It’s a mixture of things that makes him do it, but he lies and tells himself it’s to help Bucky. To his credit, Bucky’s breathing evens out, but he stares at Sam, confusion clear in his wide eyes. Sam struggles for words for a moment, but Bucky kisses him with just a moment’s of hesitation. It’s to shut him up or possibly to save him from his piss poor attempts to string together more than two words, never mind doing so with any level of coherency. Either way, he grateful as he kisses back.

-

Sam doesn’t mind that the relationship moves slow. He lets Bucky guide it for the most part, but he always tells him how he feels or what he’s thinking when Bucky asks. The most notable is when Bucky asks him what ‘this’ is, and he tells him what he wants it to be. Bucky seems happy with his answer, and they go back to the game of Mario Kart they were playing.

There are a few times that Sam pushes the envelope. He’s careful, but he wants Bucky to know he’s truly invested in the relationship. It’s also to show that he doesn’t think Bucky is too weak or too fragile to be pushed like everyone else seems to think. He doesn’t see Bucky like that, but it’s important to him that Bucky’s comfortable.

On an entirely selfish level, Sam’s just scared of screwing it all up. It’s easier to let Bucky pace things.

He catches himself considering what might happen if the relationship goes south. Nothing good will come out of it, and he doesn’t want to cause Bucky anymore damage than he’s already dealing with. He might not see Bucky as fragile, but he’s not one to lie about the reality that Bucky is damaged. He is too, and he has to remind himself that Bucky’s a big boy. He’s made his choices, and that’s the most important part.

-

Slowly, Bucky begins to see Steve for more than a few minutes at a time. Sometimes it becomes too much. He gets overwhelmed. It’s usually not by Steve’s fault, but Bucky finds himself looking for an out all the same.

Steve’s intuitive, and Sam is good with excuses. They’re more for Bucky’s sake than Steve’s. Steve doesn’t think Bucky should have to make any excuse, even if it still breaks his heart to see him hurt and panicked. Even if all he wants is to make him smile like he used to. He knows not to expect to fix decades worth of pain in just a couple of months. 

He can work with that. He’s with Bucky to the end of the line.

-

Exactly four months and two days in, Bucky cracks a smile around Steve, because of Steve. Somehow that smile devolves into laughter. Bucky tries to hold his sides as they burn from the lack of oxygen, and Steve can’t help laughing along with him. When Sam walks into the room, it’s to find the two seniors giggling at god knows what, but he doesn’t ask. He just smiles and slips back out of the room.

The only thing he can think is that he should have gotten a picture.

-

Four months and three days in marks the day Sam begins to take pictures. He does it discretely at first, which is easy enough with a smart phone. He takes pitures every now and then when he catches Bucky smiling, or intently focused on a recipe with his tongue poking between his lips, or sleeping on the couch. He captures Bucky the way he sees him, and it’s four months and nine days later that he realizes just how differently Bucky sees himself.

Sam catches Bucky with his phone, flipping through the album of pictures that consist primarily of Bucky with a look of complete confusion on his face. At first, Sam worries that Bucky might think it’s creepy. It is... a little, but most of the pictures are cute or sweet. He’s not stupid enough to take a picture of a pissed off Bucky, even if it’s tempting. Either way, this isn’t the sort of thing that he’s used to. But that thought quickly vanishes when Bucky looks up at Sam and asks, “These are me?”

For a moment, Sam wonders if Bucky means to ask if all of the pictures are of him. Yes, they are, or are of things related to him. It’s more than that, though. He can see it in Bucky’s eyes, and his stomach twists as he realizes the answer isn’t as obvious a ‘yes’ as it should be.

-

He keeps taking pictures. They vary a little more now that Bucky knows. He catches him reading, legs folded up and completely hunched over his book with a look of complete focus on his face and his eyes far away. He takes a few pictures of Bucky and Natasha together. For whatever reason, Bucky is easy with her in a way that he can’t be with Steve, and they speak in a way that doesn’t quite sound like full sentences, though Sam can’t be sure. His Russian isn’t very good. There are a few dozen others, at least. Bucky covered in cake batter, or after a run, or with all the covers wrapped around him because Bucky adamantly denies that he is a dirty blanket stealing bastard in his sleep.

He tells Steve about the pictures. He tells Steve about a lot of things. It helps put Steve at ease, and it keeps realistic goals in his mind. Steve can’t expect to have the James ‘Bucky’ Barnes he knew seventy years ago back in a matter of months, and, if he’s honest, he knows his Bucky has been gone since the day he was captured all those years ago. He and Sam have had countless conversations regarding that topic. Survivor’s guilt still has a hold on him that he will never shake, among other things.

Steve’s never expected to have Bucky magically reverted to the man he knew all those years ago, despite what Bucky thinks, but it’s still easy to get caught up in the good, particularly when Steve doesn’t have to see the bad too often.

Steve draws Bucky sparing with Natasha. It’s one of the few time he’s seen Bucky truly look as though he belongs where he is, in his own skin. He captures the fluidity of the movements, despite the limitation of graphite on a single piece of paper. Natasha’s lines are easier, softer, almost more like a dancer than an assassin. Bucky’s are a little rougher, more aggressive. He’s more about the attack than defending himself, even though he’s equally as good at the latter.

If his sketchbook gets left on the floor next to his water bottle, it’s a complete slip of the mind when Tony asks him to help move something in the lab.

-

Steve starts spending nights at Sam’s house after a mission that leaves Sam and Steve wiped out. Bucky makes them food, but he really could have put just about anything in front of them. There isn’t much tasting between large bites of food, but they do manage to eat all of it. The recipe is for six people.

Both insist they’re up for a movie. Sam doesn’t make it through the credits. Steve doesn’t make it through the first two scenes. Bucky rolls his eyes and switches to something more interesting after settling between the two. He knows they’re wiped out when neither seem to notice the sudden weight pressed against either of their sides.

Bucky wakes up with his head resting against Sam’s chest. His arms are a mess, but his legs are rested on Steve’s lap. He’s not even sure when that happened, or how Steve came to lie against the arm of the couch instead of the back. His feet are on the ground, while Sam’s are now propped up on the coffee table.

He considers getting up, but he’s warm and comfortable and _safe_.

-

Bucky’s head rests against Sam’s chest as he draws patterns into his shirt. Something is on his mind, Sam can tell, but he’s not sure what. He doesn’t push, focuses instead on what he’s reading. If Bucky wants to talk, he’ll talk. He just doesn’t expect the words to stab him in the gut when he finally does.

“Do you still think about him?”

In the several months that they have lived together, Sam’s found that he could use a Bucky-to-English manual at times. He’s not always clear, and that doesn’t necessarily have to do with bad dreams or flashbacks, though his Russian is still not any good. That doesn’t make anything any easier. No, sometimes Bucky seems to have entire conversations in his head, but only says some chunk of the middle aloud.

“Yes,” he says. He doesn’t need a manual this time.

Bucky doesn’t respond. He stops drawing. His finger stays still against Sam’s chest until he flattens his hand over his heart. He doesn’t mind the answer. He just doesn’t have anything to say, but he understands.

-

Steve becomes a more permanent fixture after a mission that leaves three holes in his abdomen, a mild concussion, and a stubborn broken wrist. He spends three days in the hospital before he’s released AMA. Natasha isn’t nearly as pleasant as the doctors in regards to going against medical advise. She more or less threatens Steve into Sam’s watch, and walks away with a sweet smile on her face after depositing him in Sam’s lap, so to speak.

Something seems to click in place for Bucky, like he realizes that Steve really might not be there forever. It doesn’t matter that his own hands almost took Captain America out. He’s happy to think of Steve as ten foot tall and bullet proof. The three bullet wounds that tore his insides up beg to differ, and Bucky can’t let it go.

Steve doesn’t mind, and neither does Sam. The only real problem is that Bucky is still a blanket hog, which is fine and dandy for one or the other of them, since he also likes to sleep in the middle, but really sucks for the person that gets left in the cold. Sometimes, it’s both. Bucky completely cocoons himself in the blankets in a way that Sam doesn’t even think is possible without waking him or Steve, yet Bucky manages.

Extra blankets don’t help.

-

If there’s any wonder whether or not Bucky’s prepared for Steve to be back in his life in such a significant way (or, for that matter, if Steve’s ready to be back in Bucky’s life), it goes out the window when Bucky wakes with a scream. His eyes seeing straight through him when Steve quickly reappears from the bathroom. He moves toward the bed cautiously, remembering that fast movements won’t do any good.

“Bucky,” he starts. He’s no good at this. He wishes Sam would come back. He doesn’t know what to say or do to make this right and not much, much worse.

“Bucky, it’s Steve,” he says. “I’m here, okay?” He moves a little closer, chances getting punched or possibly choked, but all he gets is a strangled, terrified sound from Bucky. He looks so confused, like he can’t reconcile what he’s seeing with what he’s hearing, and it breaks Steve’s heart.

He sends a text with a single character in it to Sam while he moves a little closer again, putting both of his hands in Bucky’s line of sight. “You can move, okay? No one’s going to stop you. You can do whatever you want. I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he would rather die than break that promise. He’s never going to let anyone hurt Bucky again.

By the time Sam rushes in, Steve and Bucky are curled on the bed. Steve’s fingers are intertwined with the fingers of Bucky’s left hand. It might not seem like much, but Sam knows how conflicted Bucky feels about those metal fingers of his.

Sam smiles at Steve. He moves over to the bed. The mattress shifts under his weight. Bucky’s eyes snap up to look at him. He’s still on edge, but his muscles visibly relax and he presses closer to Steve when he realizes that there’s no threat in the new presence.

It’s not perfect, but they’re a work in progress.

-

Bucky getting back out in the field makes a significant difference in everyone’s sleeping abilities. They’re rarely all three home together, never mind able to sleep together. Bucky’s still steals all of the blankets, but he’s far more bearable when it’s just two bodies and not three. Sam’s figured out that lying on top of the blankets gives him some chance of waking up with some. He passes this secret on to Steve.

-

They all have their bad days (and nights). Because they aren’t always together, there’s ways to alert the third party to another’s distressed state. It’s simple, and it’s an arrangement they’ve had for awhile. It’s a single character text. Just an exclamation mark, but it’s enough to understand.

Recently, they’ve begun to add a single letter. For Bucky’s, it’s a ‘B’. For Steve, an ‘R’, and for Sam, a ‘W’. Each has a different way of showing distress, and each has a different way of coping with it. It simply helps to warn the third party coming into the situation what they’re getting into and how to proceed.

The issue with their little system is that they are all too stubborn to send the text for themselves. It has to come from whoever might be with them or find them. Bucky is the only exception to this, as he has several instances where he’s completely blindsided by his own mind. Sam and Steve frequently pick up on the warning signs before he does.

Bucky is generally the easiest to read. If he’s having an attack, he doesn’t always notice the way his chest tightens or his eyes look off. He’s already somewhere else before he can stop it. Steve gets quiet, or he pushes himself more. Runs faster, trains harder. Sam? Well, it’s not until Steve comes home one day that he’s reminded just how human Sam is. It’s easy to forget when Sam is usually the one counseling them and helping them.

Sam’s quiet, sitting in the chair by the window in the living area. He’s almost always got music on when he’s alone, whether he’s thinking, reading, or doing chores. Different music for different occasions, but it’s always there. Now, the apartment is quiet in a way that Steve has grown to hate. It never really means anything good.

He makes his way over to him. The first thing he notices is how unfocused Sam is. He even jumps when Steve comes into his line of vision, like Steve hasn’t been making as much noise as possible since realizing Sam’s presence.

“Hey,” Steve says. His voice is gentle, eyes soft and worried.

“Hey,” Sam offers in return. His voice sounds like it hasn’t been used in days. His focus turns right back out toward the window.

Steve struggles to figure out what to do. He sends a quick text to Bucky: ‘W!’ and focuses on Sam, searching for an answer he’s not sure Sam can or will give him. He notices the way his hand is curled tight. So tight that his knuckles have gone white. Steve almost reaches out to try to uncurl his fingers, but he won’t force anything. He does hold his hand out, “May I?”

Sam looks at him again. He looks hesitant before he pushes something into Steve’s fingers, curls them tight around the object like Steve might drop it otherwise. His eyes are back out the window again.

Steve waits a moment, takes a breath and holds it, before opening his fingers. He knows the object is thin, like paper maybe. Except it’s smooth. When he opens his hand, he knows why. It’s a photograph. It’s crinkled from the way Sam held it in his fist, but it doesn’t take much effort to unruffle the edges. Steve’s heart drops into his stomach when he realizes what it is, and what it means.

The picture is of Sam and another man, light skin with sandy blond hair, more like Clint’s than Steve’s, and brown eyes. Sam’s got an arm hooked around his shoulder, and they’re both clearly laughing. To any other person, it would look like two friends having a good time. To Steve, it looks like a fallen soldier, friend, and lover.

Sometimes he wonders how Sam feels about his and Bucky’s relationship. They connected on some level, over the weight of war and the emptiness of loss, yet... he has Bucky. Riley won’t come back. There’s no hearing his voice again. There’s no holding him when nightmares of things no one should have to see plague him. No seeing or touching his face again. He’s gone, and Steve knows that feeling. He just happens to be lucky enough to have Bucky back.

Once Bucky gets to the apartment, Steve arranges for all three of them to have several days of leave with no chance of being interrupted. Sam doesn’t really talk about it, but they’re okay with that. They watch old westerns and order pizza. It’s not much, but at least there’s no blanket for Bucky to steal when they all fall asleep in a pile on the couch.

-

The moment Bucky can get away with it, he drags both of them out of the apartment for froyo. He’s so excited about the whole thing that Sam can’t help but smile for the first time in days.

-

Sam’s snapped out of sleep by sudden movements. The mattress shifting under someone’s weight. He hears a threat ground out between clenched teeth. Bucky’s on his feet with the gun from the nightstand in his hand. Sam rubs at his eyes as he tries to process what the hell is going on.

He doesn’t know much Russian, but he knows enough to understand Natasha threatening some rather uncomfortable and creative types of bodily harm to Bucky if he doesn’t put the damn gun down, followed up with a far more ‘polite’ request for someone to help her before she bleeds out while they continue to look pretty (stupid).

Sam’s the first to register everything, surprisingly. He gets up and moves to grab the first article of clothing from the floor that he sees and puts pressure against the worst of her wounds. She leans heavily on him, and he can tell she’s hurting and in rough shape. 

Bandaging Natasha up takes the better part of two hours. There’s more than enough blood caked in her hair, but she swears that she’s not concussed. Further assessment tells Sam that she’s not wrong, but the rest of her injuries are worrying enough. She has a deep stab wound just under her left lung, and she’s lucky that nothing is seriously damaged. He can’t repair lungs.

Bucky guides her to the bed while Sam attempts to clean the bathroom up a little. It mostly consists of him moping blood off the sink with already bloody wash cloths and throwing them into the tub with the other bloody wash clothes.

They curl up close to her, both too scared to really push against her, but they won’t leave her either. Bucky stays up the whole night, keeping an eye on her. Sam dozes on and off.

Steve comes home at six o’clock the next morning to find the three curled up. He sees Bucky’s exhausted eyes and tells him to go to sleep. He’ll watch over Natasha. He’s tired, but he knows Bucky’s been up for awhile. He settles on the swivel chair at the desk.

Bucky drifts off in a matter of minutes. Sam wakes only for a moment, acknowledges that Steve is there, and he’s out again within seconds. Steve stays up, as promised, and watches over the three. He keeps his eyes on Natasha for the most part, watching for any chance in her breathing or the color in her skin. He wants to check for fever, but he won’t risk waking her when she so clearly needs the rest. 

Her cheeks aren’t flushed at least.

As the fourth hour starts, he can’t help but think something about this feels right, like they’ve been missing something all along.

-

Putting four people on the same bed never seems to go smoothly. Any combination of the four can be just as disastrous.

Natasha, as it turns out, completely sprawls out when she’s in a decent state of sleep, when she’s comfortable and feels safe in her surroundings. It partly solves the issue of fitting four people in a bed, but Sam and Steve are both heaters in their sleep. Between the two and part of Natasha’s weight on him, Bucky wakes up in the middle of the night and contemplates smothering all of them.

Steve tends to snore when he’s hurt. They still can’t figure out _why_ , but he does it. They’ve all taken video to prove their point when Steve denies it. It’s not exactly loud, but they aren’t exactly normal sleepers.

Sam seems to be the only one that sleeps peacefully at night without disturbing anyone else, but he does have the occasional nightmare where his arms become far too animated for anyone’s good. Bucky wakes up abruptly with an accidental punch to the face that results in him pushing Sam off the bed, hogging the covers, and clenching them tight in his left hand when Steve tries to pull some back to himself.

Bucky is a magic eight ball of possibilities. He’s highly animated with nightmares. He’s certainly the biggest blanket stealer any of them has ever met, and he’s impossible when he’s sick or hurt. He can’t get comfortable, so he shifts all night long. As the person that insists on sleeping in the middle of every combination, it makes it impossible for anyone to sleep.

The good news is that it’s rare that all four is ever home at the same time, or that they all stay at Sam’s every night. Bucky always stays there, when he’s not on a mission. Steve tends to prefer Sam’s, but he comes and goes. Natasha comes and goes far more freely. It makes for fewer threats and more restful nights.

Even when all four are home, and pushing and pulling at each other with mutter words in the middle of the night, it works for them.

-*-

That is until the day that Sam walks into their room to find Bucky and Clint cuddling on the center of the mattress. Clint’s drooling for fuck’s sake, and Sam did not sign up for this. He smacks Clint in the face with his pillow and makes his way to the living room while ignoring the ‘hey!’ and whining that follows it up. 


End file.
